Sky York Journal
In Mississippi, the midterms have exposed a contradiction rooted in the country’s most complicated and enduring legacies.
It feels both startling and inevitable that a state which hasn’t seen a Black senator since the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, and which is nearly 40% Black, could be about to elect its first Black senator since the 1800s. The state has the largest proportion of Black residents in the nation. It hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1982, the year that this year’s Democratic Senate nominee, Scott Colom, was born.
“Unlike all the people across the country that might be surprised…,” Colom said during a press event on Wednesday, “the people of Mississippi are not surprised.”
Another surprise for most of us watching: The state has no laws to handle contested elections. It’s one of only three states without an automatic recount mechanism.
In deep red Mississippi, Colom was up by 65 votes against Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith as of 1 p.m. on Wednesday with more than 97% of the estimated vote counted. That’s an increase from the 28 votes he was up in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, and the 43 votes he was up around breakfast time.
“I am very happy with where we stand,” said Colom. “I’m confident once the process lays out, where we are, where the ballots are, we’re gonna win.”
Here’s what we know about where things stand and when we might expect a winner.
What’s Left to Count?
NBC’s Decision Desk projects about 44,000 more ballots still needed to be counted as of Wednesday at 2 p.m. Hyde-Smith would need to win 49% of those to beat Colom, according to NBC.
That included 9,000 outstanding votes in Hinds County, where Colom was up by more than 61 points, and 2,400 votes in Madison County, where Colom was up by less than a point. There were an estimated 4,200 votes left to be counted in Harrison County, where Hyde-Smith leads by 3.7 points, and 6,000 outstanding votes in Rankin, where Hyde-Smith leads Colom by more than a 25-point margin.
Colom’s campaign also said as many as 15,000 affidavit ballots were still outstanding, according to Mississippi Today. If a voter shows up and isn’t listed on the rolls, they can vote by affidavit ballot by showing a valid ID.
If a voter shows up and isn’t listed on the rolls for their jurisdiction, they can vote by affidavit ballot by showing a valid ID. If a voter is on the rolls, but does not have a valid ID at the time of voting, they can complete an affidavit ballot and have five business days to present a valid ID to the proper election office. Nov. 10 is the cut-off to present an ID for this race. State election officials then have to verify those votes.
Affidavit ballots leaned left compared to overall ballots cast in 2024, Zachary Donnini, who leads data science at VoteHub, wrote on social media.
Delayed Mail-in Ballots
Mississippi counts mail-in ballots five days after Election Day. It’s unclear how many mail-in ballots remain outstanding, but voting by mail surged in Mississippi this year, with more than 116,000 absentee ballots cast ahead of Election Day, according to the Mississippi Free Press.
Whoever Gets the Most Votes Wins
Mississippi does not hold runoffs for general federal elections. Unlike some other states, where runoffs are triggered automatically if a candidate does not receive at least 50% of the vote, winners in Mississippi need only secure a plurality of ballots cast.
Theoretically, either candidate here could be elected senator based on just one person’s vote.
No Automatic Recount
Mississippi is one of just three states — the others are Illinois and Tennessee — which does not have any mechanism to trigger an automatic recount in general elections.
The state has no recount-specific laws. A candidate would have to contest an election under specific legal grounds, and a recount can only be held following a court order.
“That’s not to say a losing candidate in Mississippi has no remedy,” Derek Muller, professor of law at Notre Dame Law School, wrote for the Election Law Blog. “One remedy is to challenge decisions to exclude or to include certain ballots in the tabulation under state or federal law (if one could identify such ballots and then a legal theory). Those would require adjustment of vote totals even if not part of a ‘recount’ or a ‘contest.’”
Update: This post has been revised to clarify affidavit ballot procedures.
